


never once beautiful

by acrisione



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Crying, Gen, POV Outsider, Social Media, TV News
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 21:03:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3951661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acrisione/pseuds/acrisione
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Watching helplessly as the world she knew collapses around her, Miriam can only sit-by as SHIELD explodes.  Or, the events of Captain America:  the Winter Soldier as seen from the prospective of an outsider.</p>
            </blockquote>





	never once beautiful

Twitter was the first person to alert Miriam that something was wrong.  As she would find out over the next few days, a lot was wrong.  She had turned her phone on after stepping out of the classroom they had been using for the student government meeting, hoping to see a text from her mother about picking her up.  Instead, she scrolled through her exploding Twitter feed with a growing sense of fear.  She paused half-way down the stairs, legs shaking, as she saw a picture of a man dressed in black standing aside a smoking, upturned car.  There had been an attack in DC – and not any attack, for it was being billed an assassination attempt against the Director of SHIELD.  By who?  No one yet knew.

 _Well_ , she thought.  _Someone had to know_.  Closing out of the app and noticing the text from her mother for the first time, she put her phone back in her purse and hurried the rest of the way down the stairs, heart beating frantically.  The few other people still at school were walking by like everything was just fine, but that was just how it had been after the alien invasion in New York.  That had crushed any thought she had of moving up there and left her with nightmares that still persisted two years later.

Her mother’s compact car was parked by the curb out in front of the school.  One of the few (or so it felt) seniors without a car, she had to rely on friends and family to get her to and from school.  But not having a car was saving her money that was going to go to her schooling, and so it was a trade she was willing to make.

The car door swung open and she threw her messenger bag into the backseat before sitting herself down in the passenger’s seat.  Her face must have been as bloodless as it felt, because her mother asked, “Miriam, what’s wrong?” in a worried tone the 18-year-old seldom heard.

“Have you heard?” she replied absentmindedly, pulling her phone from her purse so she could turn it off.

“About the terrorist attack in Washington?  Your grandmother called me on my way here to tell me about it.  Sounds absolutely terrifying.”  She began pulling out of the parking lot, tapping her nails on the steering wheel.  “You sure about this?”

Miriam had recently sent an application to SHIELD about interning.  Her thought was, if anything else scary and unpredictable was going to happen, at SHIELD she might have a fighting chance – and the resources to do and know things she otherwise would never.

“Yeah,” she shrugged, “I’m sure they aren’t going after everyone.  Just some rando.”

Rafqa gave a sideways glance to her daughter as she pulled up at the stop sign.  “I just want you to be safe.”

Miriam nodded, fiddling nervously with her seatbelt.  “I’m scared.  It’s like – it’s just so, like, – scary and I don’t, I . . . what can we do?  Aliens!  Aliens trying to kill us!  Over two years ago Norse mythology – _Norse mythology_! – was confirmed as true!  We got people living for years in ice and weapons that make people disappear and men who turn big and green and men who fly around in metal suits and, and . . . it’s unpredictable and scary.”  She hadn’t realized she was crying until she felt her mother’s warm hands wiping away at the tears that had spilled down her cheeks.

“It’s going to be okay,” her mother said, pulling over into the grass and shutting the engine down.

“You saw what happened to Harlem in 2008, didn’t you?  Things like that exist and when it comes to defense all we can do is run.  I think safety lives within SHEILD.”  Not to mention the power, but she was not sure what she could do.  She knew she was no spy, not an athlete or a scientist.

Rafqa took her daughter’s hands in her own and frowned, the lines on her brown face deepening.  “Will they want a girl like you?”

The great road blocks:  not only a girl but an Arab girl.  She knew how police and military were trained, what they were told about people like her.  Would SHIELD be any different?

“We’re Christian?” she said, a small smile creeping past her fears.

Sighing, Rafqa let go and started digging around in her purse.  “Do I need to talk to you about that or do you know all that was wrong in what you said?”

“I know,” Miriam replied.  She wiped away at her face.

Pulling out her compact and inspecting her face, Miriam noticed that her mother was too crying.  The older woman patted at her face to make sure her makeup was intact.  “I just want you to be okay.”

“I know, mom,” Miriam said quietly.

“So,” said Rafqa, “how about we go to the restaurant near the house and get some bae'lewa?”

Miriam instantly perked up.  “Yeah!  I’m sure they’ll get that guy soon.”

Rafqa smiled.  “I can’t wait to see who that creep is!”

“I know,” replied Miriam, worry replaced with a sense of excitement, “I mean, like, did you see any video?  I just saw pictures and it looked so intense!  And he looked so scary!”

She would soon find out how scary and intense it was.

Only mere hours after the sticky mess on her fingers dried as she listened in stunned horror to the news that Nick Fury had been shot to death in the apartment on Captain America himself, Miriam found herself shaking in the lunchroom as she read the news that had spread its way through the school faster than anything she had ever heard:  Steve Rogers was a fugitive from SHIELD.

The pictures on her Facebook wall – taken from some far away apartment building – show America’s hero (her hero) destroying a jet that was sent to stop him from escaping from SHIELD’s HQ.  Now she was shaking.

“Miriam?” Jenny asked.  “Are you okay?  Is it about Captain America?  I wonder what he has done.”

Miriam looked at Jenny with wide eyes as Georgia picked up one of her french fries with a smile.  “I know,” Georgia said, “about what he hasn’t done to me.”

“Ugh, gross,” Jenny replied.

“I, uh,” Miriam said weakly, “I gotta see if I can e-mail them about my application.  I don’t,” she stood up, but her legs were shaking so badly that she collapsed back down.  “I don’t want to intern there anymore.”

“Why?” Georgia said.  “Did you only wanna do it so you could meet my vintage dream boy?”

Jenny caught Miriam’s free hand in one of her own and squeezed it.  “It’s gonna be okay,” she said quietly.  “Gotta be a misunderstanding.”

“I trust Steve Rogers,” Miriam said, barely able to hear herself.  “I trust him over SHIELD.”  She went back to her phone, trying to find the e-mail they had sent to her to confirm they had received her application.

“You think it’s SHIELD that’s up to something?” Georgia asked, the grin slipping from her face.

Miriam nodded.  “Yeah, yeah.  I do.”

“Why?” Jenny asked as Miriam opened up the e-mail she had been searching for.

With barely a glance up, Miriam said, “Are you kidding?”

“No,” Georgia answered, sounding scared.  “Why?”

Miriam placed her phone down next to her tray and looked to her two friends’, mouth hanging open as she fought to find the words to explain the fear that was rippling through her.  “Steve Rogers was a poor, disabled boy who sacrificed himself for – for, for – the people in Europe who were being killed, _murdered_.  He,” her head shook around as she tried to find the words to express her feelings, “he choose what he assumed was death, all in the hope of saving the world.  Literally.  And, nearly 70 years later, when he comes out of the ice and everything is different – everyone he has known and loved is dead, prices are sky high and they’ve changed the streets, the world is so dramatically different – what does he do?  Fights aliens – goddamn, aliens! – and saves the world again.  And when he learns that his sacrifice was for nothing, that the cube is in the wrong hands and hurting people, what does he do?  Keeps fighting and trying to do good.  _Real good_.  And if he’s done something to piss SHIELD off?  Then SHIELD is the one that is wrong.”

Standing up from the table on firmer legs, with her two friends in stunned silence next to her, Miriam grabbed her tray and dumped it in the trash before heading out the doors of the cafeteria into the hot afternoon air.  She began typing frantically on her phone, sending an e-mail to a people who were certainly too busy to attend to a petty matter like this, telling them she wanted to withdraw her application from consideration.

Then, in a moment of fear, she went to Twitter and deleted her account.  Facebook already had the highest privacy settings and she could do nothing about the ‘about’ on her Tumblr that really gave away too much, not yet, at least.  And maybe this was all for nothing.  Or maybe not.  But she felt a real and palpable fear.

And that evening, as she told her parents how she had withdrawn her application, to the confused and terrified news that was reporting an explosion at an old (Captain America’s old!) training camp in New Jersey, their relief was palpable, too.

The relief did not last long.  Yousef took the call from his sobbing daughter and left work early.  When he got to her school, he saw she was still crying.  He took her in his arms, her shaking body barely able to stand.  “Honey, honey,” he said frantically, smoothing her hair as he runs his hands down her head.  “You have to calm down.”

He had known right away what was wrong.  The TV in the office was always on and when a fight broke out on the streets of DC – with the mystery assassin vs. Captain America, an unknown man and the woman who helped save the world in New York – it was the top story.  And no one could figure out who was who.  Rogers was fighting the assassin, who had tried to attack SHIELD, who was hunting Rogers.  Some were saying three parties were at play.  And who was the man with the wings?

“Have you seen?”  She sobbed, pulling away and showing a picture of the maskless assassin to him.  “A helicopter took this.  And do you know what people are saying?”

Yousef guided her to a nearby bench and put an arm around her shoulders.  “No, I left work shortly after SHIELD was holding a gun to Captain America’s head.”

“They stopped fighting.  They stopped.  For just a second or two.  After the mask came off.  And Steve – he, he – he was different after that man’s mask came off.  I saw video of how he went down.  And people are looking at that faceless shot of that guy with the silver arm – and, an!”  She broke off into sobs.

“And saying what?” Yousef whispered.  “Miriam, you’ve got to calm down.”

“They’re saying he looks just like Bucky Barnes!”

Yousef shook his head, confused for a moment, and then said, “But he’s dead.”

“That’s what we thought about Steve and he was still alive!  And that would explain his behavior once the mask came off.”  She could barely speak, her whole body shuddering as she struggled to breath.

Yousef got off the bench and knelled in front of his daughter, taking her slim hands  his own.  “Miriam,” he said, slowly and calmly, “you’ve have got to calm down.  Listen to me, sweetheart, you need to calm down.  You are too worked up and you need to breath.  Breath for me.”

Miriam struggled to do as he said, too afraid to do much else.  There was carnage in the wake of that battle and so many unanswered questions.

It took some minutes but eventually Miriam calmed enough for Yousef to stand up and take her hand, leading her into his car.

“What do you think?” she said quietly, as he was pulling out of the parking lot.

Yousef gave her a sideways glance and he slowed to allow a car to pass him.  “Why would he do that?”

“Huh?” Miriam responded, wiping at the snot that was coming from her nose.

“Barnes and Rogers were friends.  Why would he do that?”  Yousef turned the corner, eyes on the road.

Miriam shook her head, throwing her hands into the air.  “That’s the question.  And that’s what’s so scary.  We know he was experimented on during the war by Hydra.  Maybe they got him back.”

“Hydra is gone.  Been gone,” Yousef reminded her.

Looking down at the wrinkled skirt she wearing, Miriam shrugged.  “I know.  SHIELD absorbed a lot of them after.”

“So Barnes is working for SHIELD?  And he’s okay with killing his best friend?”  Yousef said.  “And SHIELD tried to kill its’ Director?  It doesn’t make sense.”

“I know,” Miriam said quietly.  “And that’s why I’m so afraid.”

So afraid, that Rafqa and Yousef agreed to let Miriam have the Friday off.  She had been emotionally wrecked by everything that was happening, but she was not the only one.  Social media was erupting with a firestorm of thought and opinion and the actual citizens of DC were terrified.  After the attack on the bridge and the fight in the street, many places had shut down, with many too afraid to leave their homes for fear of being caught up in any more chaos.  And the question of where Steve Rogers was zipped around until news broke that his old uniform had been stolen from a museum in DC where it was being held.  Miriam had smiled at that when she heard it from the kitchen.  She was smearing cream cheese onto a bagel, still clad in her pajamas.

People wanted to know what was going on.  They wanted the assassin’s head on a platter.  A CNN poll showed 43% of respondents believed the man could be the long-dead Sergeant Barnes.  And if that was the case?  How that could of come to be was too much for Miriam to think about and by the time maybe the actual story of fighting and destruction had been repeated for the umpteenth time, there was no time to dwell on that because something was happening at SHIELD’s HQ.

Miriam had made a new Twitter with fake information – and removed her ‘about’ on Tumblr as a paranoid precaution – and was eagerly reading through people’s tweets.  Her hands were sweating on her hot phone as it broke on the TV that something was happening.

People were fleeing the building.

That was all anyone knew for sure.  People were fleeing the building.

Minutes later, a tweet surfaced claiming that Hydra is within SHIELD.  Miriam went to the account and saw another – that Captain America was there to bring them down.  Her phone clattered to the floor.

Was it true?  She reached numbly for her phone, checking it to make sure the screen had not cracked.

Soon, there was an explosion of tweets with the same message.  That at SHIELD buildings all across the globe people were fighting, people were fleeing – and people were dying.

A picture of Captain America showed up.

And then three helicarriers rose from the water.

Miriam left her phone and went to the window, peering out to the cloudy afternoon sky.  Clear.  It was quiet except for the TV, which had the news coming in slower than Twitter.  She was shaking, which was usual for the past few days.  This was it.

This was it.

She batted at the tears that were falling from her eyes.  She felt so helpless.

After coming back from the kitchen with a glass of water, she saw on the TV what she heard as she frantically gulped down her first glass of water.  Explosions around the helicarriers.

The Twitter account manned by SHIELD was quiet, the last tweet welcoming the visiting World Security Council members.

It is on the TV in the best form:  when the three hellicarriers turn on each other, exploding and falling into the river below.  Miriam sat in stunned silence, her vibrating phone ignored.  They switch to a reporter on the street, the sounds too real and too close.  She is running away, Miriam noticed, feeling far away from her body.  People are screaming and pointing upwards.

Steve Rogers’s beaten, broken body is found on the shore a few hours after the hellicarriers have gone done.  A horde of people are swimming in the waters, trying to find his missing shield.

Not much more is Miriam able to absorb.  Sam Wilson and Natasha Romanoff – two more heroes for her – are the names of the two who fought alongside Steve Rogers to bring down Hydra.  Maria Hill, who worked too with him, is on TV.  Miriam cannot hear what she is saying.

The building that was once SHIELD’s HQ is destroyed.

Hydra was confirmed to be within SHIELD all along, pulling the strings.

All of SHIELD’S files have been leaked online.  Reports are already swirling about illegal domestic missions and mysterious deaths that are no longer mysterious.  Maria Hill is interrupted for the man behind the desk to tell them that the leaked files have confirmed that the assassin is indeed Sergeant James Barnes, who was taken captive by Hydra and tortured until he became the ‘Winter Soldier’.  She could see the pictures on her phone.

Reddit was the best place for the pictures of how Barnes was unmade.  Miriam scrolled through them almost robotically, still and floating somewhere else.  There was blood.  So much blood.

Before she can realize, her head in over the toilet and she is throwing up the sandwich she had eaten for lunch.  Wiping away at her mouth, Miriam collapsed onto the floor, crying.

She did not hear the sound of the front door unlocking, but when the familiar pressure of one of her mother’s hugs caught her attention, Miriam wrapped her arms around her mother and wept.

Rafqa was shaking.  Miriam can feel her father in the doorway.  She pulled away from her mother to see his terrified expression.  “Dad?”

He did not respond.

The TV was still playing and someone was screaming.  The scream echoed in her ears.  That night, she deleted all of her profiles online and her dad threw out his smartphone as her mother commented on the absolute chaos that was coming out of the collapse of SHIELD.  More information was coming in from the files – Project Insight.  She read about it in the dark, sandwiched between her parents  on their sofa.  She read the list of targets before deciding to see if her name was there, as a joke.  And the scream that came from her when she saw it there echoed in her ears.

Who knew what to do know?  And that was why they were all afraid.

**Author's Note:**

> I might expand this to include different POVs for different events in the MCU, because I really enjoyed writing this.
> 
> This was inspired by what I think of as a lack of stories detailing how the things that take place actually effect common people who are in no way connected with what's happening. Like, how does the world deal with an alien invasion, the knowledge that Norse gods are real, that a Nazi organization has been inside the world's police this whole time? How do they? I wish there was more out there about this sort of thing, because it is something I really love to consider.
> 
> Miriam having her name on the list was, of course, directly inspired by the high school valedictorian who was scheduled to be taken out.
> 
> Finally, the title is (and you probably know it) from Kait Rokowski. The full quote is: "Nothing ever ends poetically. It ends and we turn it into poetry. All that blood was never once beautiful. It was just red." I think it's good for the MCU as a whole, because of the real destruction that is left in the wake.


End file.
